a dinner party / the soup course

there's something which seems foreign 

to the soup, mingling in the thick minestrone

so I refuse to eat the soup.

the server wears white gloves

and proceeds to the meat course.

the interior light is smeared in dark amber.

my thoughts turn to Nazi lampshades.

the doors have sunk into the walls.

then darkness. I mean real darkness.

not the kind of slick showbiz darkness where

prancing starlets make appearances

on the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy telethons.

this is baseball played in reverse.

the Earth is flat as a manhole cover.

the planets are laid squashed underneath it.

in the morning as I wake from this nightmare,

a mid-sized carnivore has my throat in its jaws

and I exclaim: “ah.. so this is how it is”!